Sign in toNOLA.com

'Bayou Maharajah' filmmaker excited to bring James Booker doc home to New Orleans

bayou maharajah james booker sxsw.jpg

James Booker, the New Orleans piano icon, is seen in an image from director Lily Keber's documentary 'Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker.' The film makes its New Orleans premiere on Thursday (Oct. 17) as the closing-night film of the 2013 New Orleans Film Festival.
(Bayou Maharajah via SWSW)

First-time filmmaker Lily Keber has taken her James Booker
documentary "Bayou
Maharajah" to Montreal, she has taken it to Los Angeles, she has taken it to Melbourne,
to Hawaii and even to New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center. But when it
makes its New Orleans premiere Thursday (Oct. 17) as the closing-night
selection of the 2013 New
Orleans Film Festival, she will finally be able to let herself feel a
certain satisfaction.

"Let's put it this way: This is the only screening I'll be
wearing a dress to," Keber said. "This is the one that my parents are coming
to. After this, I'll be able to say I've done what I've set out to do."

And make no mistake, what she set out to do is no simple
task: to elucidate the world on "The Tragic Genius of James Booker," as her
film is subtitled, and to help share the iconic New Orleans pianist's work with
those who might never have heard of
him.

The trick there is that explaining Booker is no easy task.
He's a puzzling figure, a troubled genius once described by Dr. John as "the
best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced." Even
when he was alive, Booker was a tough cat to figure. Now that he has been gone
for 30 years, the task is even more difficult.

To help get the job done she lined up an impressive cast of
local musical experts, from Dr. John to Allen Toussaint to Harry Connick Jr.,
to discuss what made Booker so crazily special. So, although she's not a
musician, she's confident that her interview subjects lend "Bayou Maharajah" an
unassailable credibility. (It helps that many of those same subjects have
watched the film and assured her that she successfully captured Booker's
essence.)

Still, she says the opinion of the local crowd in her
adopted hometown is vital, and she's eager to hear it.

"I definitely feel like this is the screening that matters
most," Keber said. "Screening it at the Lincoln Center was, of course, great.
And the screening at the Director's Guild of America was special. We have this
prestigious screening in London coming up. But ultimately those are candy. This
is really the meat. This is the audience that's going to most know whether or
not I've done my job, who will be able to call me out."

Keber refers to herself as a New Orleans "outsider," but she's
not nearly as much of an outsider as she was when she moved here in 2006, after
Hurricane Katrina did its best to drown the city. That's when the North
Carolina-born, Georgia-educated Keber decided to pack her bags for the Crescent
City -- a place that had long intrigued her -- before there was no more
Crescent City for which to pack.

In the intervening years, of course, it has become clear that
all the post-Katrina talk of the city's demise was greatly exaggerated. Also,
though, those years gave Keber a chance to immerse herself in the local culture
and discover all that it has to offer. Case in point: the music of Booker, whom
she had never heard of before moving here.

It's that thrill of discovery, in fact -- and a desire to
share it -- that prompted her to make "Bayou Maharajah" in the first place.

"New Orleans is a place that lives in people's imaginations
so much," she said. "After (screenings of the film), people always ask me, 'How
did I never hear of this guy?,' and that's exactly the kind of reaction that I
want.

"We did a screening in Dayton, Ohio, of all places. ... I
asked the audience afterward, 'How many of you people had never heard of Booker
before?,' and at least two-thirds, maybe three-quarters of the audience raised
their hand. And that really meant a lot to me, because the people who don't
know Booker (are) who I made the film for. People who know Booker, that's
wonderful, but this is really outreach to introduce him to new people. The fact
that those (new) people love him and go out and want to buy his music and want
to find out more about him, find out more about New Orleans music, to me that's
the big measure of success."

Another reason she made the film -- aside from what she
calls the naivety that comes with being a first-time filmmaker -- is that she has
become an enormous appreciator of Booker's music. In fact, she goes so far as
to call his rendition of "Taste of Honey" -- a performance of which occupies what
is arguably the most singular portion of her film -- "probably the single-most
emotionally moving piece of music I've ever heard."

"The first thing that I personally picked up on is the
emotion in his playing and the emotion in his singing," she said. "I'm not a
musician, so I didn't really realize at the start what a unique approach to the
instrument he had. But then that coupled with the stories I would hear about
him, it's like, 'This guy is too incredible.'"

Local audiences agree. Or at least they're intrigued by the
idea. After tickets to Thursday's showing of "Bayou Maharajah" sold out just a
few hours after going on sale -- a screening to be followed by in-theater
performances from some of the musicians appearing in the film -- a second
screening was added. Tickets for that screening, at 10:15 p.m. on Thursday
night at the Civic Theatre, and also including live in-theater entertainment,
are still available through
the New Orleans Film Society website.

Those unable to attend should keep an eye on the "Bayou Maharajah"
website, which tracks upcoming screenings and which will include information on
the film's eventual DVD release when it becomes available. ("Oh, the stories
that didn't make it into the film," Keber said with a laugh. "Hours and hours
and hours. We have more DVD extras than DVD.")

In the meantime, she just hopes those who knew Booker and
who appreciated him feel that her film does justice to his memory -- and his
tragic genius.

"The people who actually knew Booker in life, those are the
people I'm most interested to hear their feedback," she said. "As an outsider,
this is my tribute to New Orleans, this is my contribution to the culture
fabric of the city."

Most Read

Now Playing

Get the latest news, reviews, trailers and up-to-date listings for movies playing in local theaters. Delivered Friday afternoons.

Leave this field blank

optionalCheck here if you do not want to receive additional email offers and information.See our privacy policy

Thanks for signing up!

To view and subscribe to any of our other newsletters, please click here.